


Do It For Tips

by RenaRoo



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 09:27:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4054936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenaRoo/pseuds/RenaRoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kitty Parrucchiere is Gotham's most happening salon, ran by the vivacious Selina Kyle and manned by her horde of stray stylists. It's always full of life, and a bit of gossip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do It For Tips

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ephemeraltea (temporarily_obsessed)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporarily_obsessed/gifts).



> Summary: ( ephemeraltea ) Beauty Parlor AU with Dick, Jason, Babs, and Cass as employees. Tim, Steph, and Damian for bonus cookies.
> 
> A/N: This is mostly crack X3 No plot, I apologize!

"All I'm saying is that when Kory came to _me_ for haircuts, she had volume still. You can't compare our cuts -- and it's not like you do much. I can't believe how stick straight she has gone in recent years. It breaks my heart."

Jason stops cleaning his combs just long enough to give Dick an honest-to-god snarl. Dick's momentarily concerned that he's encroached on some sort of dangerous animal rather than critiqued a coworker.

"If you stopped sleeping with clients, we wouldn't have to compare cuts!" he snaps. "You must be the only hairdresser on the planet who thinks it's 'too awkward' to cut an ex's hair."

Dick frowns. "Kory and I dated for four years, that's not exactly _sleeping around, thanks._ And it would've been awkward as hell!"

"But you're still best friends," Jason clarifies with a wave of his newly polished scissors.

"Of course!" Dick says with an  exuberant throw of his hands. "Why wouldn't we still be friends?"

"How is that less awkward than cutting her hair?" Jay presses.

"I have intimate relationships with every cut," Dick says with a sniff. "I'm very passionate about my product. Kory's just respecting that."

Jason stares at him for a few more minutes, mouth slightly agape, but he can't seem to form a response.

"Aren't you two ready for work yet?" Selina calls as she daintily walks across the salon, her large floppy hat is threatening to come off as she nears the next station over from Jason's to fix it more snuggly atop her head. "I don't know what I pay you for."

"None of us know what you pay them for, Selina," Barbara sighs as she begins preparing the cashier for opening.

Cass grins like a lark from her spinning chair. "For the show," she offers.

"Because you love us," Jason adds smugly as Selina puts on her bug eyed sunglasses for the day. "Going out with your favorite meal ticket again today, Boss Lady?"

Selina just smiles coyly and snaps her catch closed. "Can I trust you four to do a special appointment around four for me? The client's a very close friend."

"Nope," the three in the salon respond in unison.

"I'll make them, Miss Kyle," Barbara promises, looking at them warningly over the brim of her glasses.

"Thank you, dear," Selina says before waving at them and leaving. "And get your station freshened up, Dick. It's almost nine."

"Sure thing!" he returns exuberantly as the doorbell rings with her exit. He finally makes his way over to his post, only smirking as Jason lets out a growl.

"I _knew_ you were over here for something, you little shit!" he snaps. "Stop taking my combs!"

*

It's just past 12:30 when Cassandra backs into the Kitty Parrucchiere salon, bell ringing, with bags hanging off her arms and four large teas in her hands. It won't be long before she can balance the usual lunch orders in one hand, and then Dick will need to find another "best at" title.

No one's in, _yet,_ as they're nothing as hairdressers if not efficient.

And that means Dick is styling Jason's hair again.

Cass sucks onto the straw of her own tea and walks over to the desk where Barbara is doing the afternoon earning check. The older stylist smiles appreciatively as she takes her order from Cass' arms.

"You do the weirdest shit to my hair," Jason bemoans but does not dare move.

Dick is liable to take off an ear with the speed at which he makes his cuts. Normally he is more carefully with clients. With Jason there holds no bars.

"I make you look good and you love it," Dick jests, holding up one hand toward Cass without looking to her. "Cassie! I'm dying of thirst!"

"Still fighting?" Cassandra questions as she tosses the styrofoam cup, ignoring Barbara's slight gasp and flinch. "That's not very nice."

"Dick's not a very nice person, despite what he fools you all into believing," Jason counters before flinching himself as Dick catches the drink one handed, slightly spraying Jay with the condensation. "Seriously?"

Dick hums around his straw and snips off some of the hairs at the top.

Cass smiles, taking out the box with Jason's burgers and fries before making her way to the captured barber. He frowns at her as hair falls around him.

"No chilidogs?" he sighs.

There are plenty of stands throughout Gotham for Jason's favorite treat. Selina, out of concern for her employees, has asked Cassandra to not stop at them when she gets lunch. To not "enable" their strongman.

"Nope," she lies easily.

"One of these days I'm going to stop sending you," he groans. "For godsake, Dick, are you done? I wanted a _trim!"_

Making an obnoxious slurp, Dick makes a final cut right above Jason's ear, making the other man go stick straight. "Yeah, I guess so."

Cass likes the cut, she always does like Dick's styles, but she has to turn her head slightly at Jason's newest due.

"Red?" she asks, examining the roots for how thorough Dick was with the color.

"It's a long story," Jason mutters while Barbara and Dick break into laughter.

*

It's slightly after one when Tim Drake enters the salon to the various but relatively cheerful greetings of the workers.

He makes a beeline for Cassandra's station while she is sweeping the floor and she knows, like everyone else, what he's come in for today.

Barbara fashions the perm she has been working on with a roll of her eyes, Jason mouths 'girls' to Dick who just knowingly continues shaving the back of his client's neck. Tim's been hanging out with them in the salon since he started college. They all have their areas of expertise he is willing to go to at the proper time.

Cassandra just isn't sure when she became the one he went to for _girls._

Except, perhaps, for the fact that Cass has been very good at acquiring affections from both sexes she doesn't necessarily aim for. When she wants to date someone, she lets them know upfront. When she doesn't it leads to a bunch of awkward stares and a week or so of discomfort for the other party.

Tim plops into Cass' station chair.

"Okay, it's Steph," he says immediately.

The rest of the stylists make acknowledging noises and go back to their work. This is retreaded territory.

Cassandra blinks twice at him and then finishes her sweeping. She appreciates Tim's ability to cut to the heart of the matter. It is what has made them such quick friends.

That and the fact that his on and off girlfriend is Cass' best friend.

"I don't know what I did," he continues when Cass doesn't bother to prompt him for details.

"I do," Cass replies before throwing away the dustpan's catchings.

Tim gives her a face. "I know you do. That's why I want to know what I did. I can't figure it out."

"It's the same thing," Cass says, attempting gentle prodding this time. Perhaps it will stick. Most likely not, though. "Same as the one before last time."

He gives her a dull look before hanging his head with a sigh. "I don't know what I did last time or the time before that."

Cass tucks her hair behind her ears, bothers to wonder for a moment if she should continue growing it out or cut it all off again, and then puts her hands on her hips. She squares off with Tim the best she can with her apron taking away any form of being imposing.

"Darla," she says flatly.

"How many times do I have to tell you guys that there's nothing between her and me?" Tim moans. "She just won't believe that I have a girlfriend who's a nurse and works all the time. What am I supposed to do? Be _rude_ to her?"

"At this point, yes," Cass says with a sympathetic frown. "Avoid her, Tim. She's bad news."

"I can't," He says, basically becoming liquid and pooling into the seat of the chair. Cass wonders idly how he gets himself into these positions. "She's a photography major, too. We're stuck together. Peas in a pod."

"I know a guy," Jason offers from across the salon.

 _"No,"_ the other employees snap emphatically.

Jason shrugs and continues working.

"Just… don't be stupid, Tim," Cass offers, grabbing the spray bottle and leaning over Tim to fix her hair in the mirror. "And no. I won't tell Steph."

"I won't tell her I had lunch with Darla either," Tim jokes, earning him a squirt in the face.

"Are you going to let me cut your hair today, Tim?" Dick pleads as the student straightens up and wipes his face off with his sleeve.

"Not today," Tim huffs, tucking his hair behind his ears.

Cass looks at its length jealously. It's satisfying knowing that should Tim _really_ screw up, Stephanie has already given Cass permission to shave Tim bald and make a wig.

She likes wigs.

*

Jason is clearing up his area and looking to the clock between each motion. It's as if he has a personal dare between himself and the work clock -- how fast can the seconds tick by so that closing time comes before the next customer walks in.

Dick is sitting on the back of his chair -- like a freak -- and chatting in hushed tones with Barbara as she washes her client's hair. Cass is in the back, stocking shelves because she's smarter than Jason is apparently and knows how to end a day's worth of cutting hair early.

The next walk in will be Jay's, and he's feeling the last few cuts in his knuckles already.

When the bell rings, he all but kicks his trashcan back against the wall to the snickers of his coworkers.

"This _cannot_ be the place father meant."

Jason shakes off his jacket as he walks to the counter and looks to find the obnoxious voice's owner.

He sees split ends sticking up, just barely, across the desk space.

"You lost?" Jason says, well past his usual pleasantries to customers by this point in the day. The kid is a half-pint if Jason has ever seen one. Hilariously so.

Still… _something_ is familiar about the kid. Jason just can't place him.

The kid, in a black sweater and slacks despite the fact that Jason's pretty sure he'd fit in a pocket, narrows his eyes and basically hisses. "I _must_ be. I was told to come to a salon by my father's acquaintance. But considering that this is most certainly not to the standards of any salon I have been to, it _must_ be a mistake."

Jason blinks and then turns to look at Barbara.

She takes a moment to wave her scissors at her head in a motion that would seem dangerous to those without professionally trained hands. It still makes Jason nervous -- to the point that he's not certain if she actually means it as a threat or not.

Then it clicks.

"You're Bruce Wayne's brat," he says out loud before thinking.

"Excuse you?" the feral child practically seethes. "What did you call me?"

"Ah, hell, you're the 'favor' Selina was talking about," Jay says as he rubs at his face. "It's about to be a long hour. Hope your dad buys her a new car for this."

It will take a lot of self restraint Jason simply does not have to keep from talking about the bourgeoisie. And this kid looks liable to stab the barber with his own razor.

*

The lights are off in the front of Kitty Parrucchiere as Selina unlocks the door, but she can see that the backlight, where the sinks and drying seats are, is still on. Her little troublemakers are still in the facility.

Because they're fairly sluggish about leaving from one mode to another, and that includes quitting.

"Hello," the drum out from their seats -- Jason laying on the newly mopped floor, Barbara perched on a plastic chair, Cass in a drying seat, Dick laying across the cleared counter with his head hanging off the edge.

They're insurance hazards, every one of them.

"I brought you a pizza," Selina explains, holding up the extra large box and immediately grabbing her "kids'" attentions. She smiles at them as she uses her foot to hook around the leg of a nearby foldable table and scoots it closer to where the stylists have gathered. "I figured you all were exhausted after a long day and needed to decompress."

"Do you have another date tonight?" Barbara asks, reaching over Jason's head to grab the first slice.

"Or are you finally calmed down enough from your new boy toy to spend it with us?" Dick asks with wiggle of his brows.

"Oh, I've still got my toy," Selina assures them, grabbing a chair and scooting it closer to the table. "But some days, I need to spend time with my favorite bunch of kittens."

She's handed a slice from Cass and watches as the others exuberantly eat their pizza.

It's a good life, she decides, testing her own slice.


End file.
